1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of enterprise management systems and in particular to a computer based, object oriented, model of enterprise management which may be utilized to manage any objects which can be characterized by topological associations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Management systems utilized in a business or other enterprise frequently apply computing systems to automate aspects of the enterprise management. Enterprise management, as used herein, relates to the management of any objects used by the enterprise, and the topological associations between those objects. As used herein, "topological associations" refer to associations or relationships between objects. These associations or relationships are frequently represented graphically. A collection of objects and the topological associations between them is referred to herein as a "topology." A system which manages such topologies is referred to herein as a "topological" management system. Typical examples of such topological enterprise management computing systems are personnel management systems, asset management systems, network/computing management systems, communications management systems, and site management systems. It is common for large enterprises to use computing systems to aid in the management of these and other aspects of the enterprise.
For example, an enterprise may manage payroll functions through the management of objects such as payroll checks, employees, withholding accounts, retirement accounts, and the associations therebetween. An employee is associated with one withholding account and one retirement account but with several payroll checks. Or, in a further example, the management of an enterprise network may involve associations between several subnets, between a node and its neighbors, between a node and its users, or between a particular program and its users.
In general, prior management information application programs which attempt to manage topological aspects of an enterprise can be characterized as managing the objects in isolation and the associations between the managed objects. The rules that govern the associations between objects essentially define the topology. For example, the rules that define the associations between nodes and protocol layers in a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network define a TCP/IP topology. Enterprise management applications which relate to TCP/IP network management therefore seek to enforce compliance with rules which define the TCP/IP topology. In all known prior management applications, there is no enterprise-wide standard for defining such topologies. Instead, a variety of disparate solutions tend to evolve, each of which manages a particular topology within the enterprise.
The types of objects managed and the managed associations between those objects varies widely among these enterprise topology management systems. It is common practice in the art to utilize different computer based management tools for each of the several management tasks common within an enterprise. A tool which is well tuned for a particular use, a particular aspect of enterprise management, is often preferred to a general purpose tool which attempts to incorporate more features in a generalized manner. Due to this preference it is common to use a plurality of management tools, often produced by disparate vendors, each well tuned to a different management task. By way of example, a personnel management task may select one computing system well tuned to payroll generation. A different tool may be preferred for maintaining other personnel records and enterprise organizational matters relating to staffing (i.e. organization charts).
A first problem with the use of disparate applications programs is the increase in development effort to create the needed applications. Frequently the various management applications are developed over a span of time by diverse development groups. Each application tends to develop its own unique structures and methods for managing the topological associations between the managed objects. This redundant development may increase the complexity and related costs for development of such topological management applications. In addition, the variety of independently developed structures and methods for managing topological associations between managed objects tends to lead toward incompatible designs which may be difficult to integrate.
A second problem with the use of disparate systems for different management tasks utilizing common elements of information arises in the inevitable duplication of stored information. Since each of the disparate management tasks typically is associated with its own unique format and structure for storage of information, it is common that similar information is duplicated in the information storage of several management applications. For example, one management application may require information regarding an employee with respect to payroll issues, while another application may store information regarding the same employee useful to business travel planning. Both management applications may need access to common information such as office mail stop and phone extension, etc. Both disparate management applications may store this common information for use in different operations (i.e. payroll deposits or travel scheduling).
This duplication of stored information increases the aggregate storage capacity needs of the enterprise. More importantly, when such common information is modified, (i.e. the employee moves to a new office mail stop), the information may be updated in one application but not another. Such potential inconsistencies in information managed by enterprise management applications creates problems for information manager. Each disparate management application must take responsibility for updating its own stored version of all common elements of information.
An enterprise could attempt to initially integrate all possible enterprise information management subsystems early in their design phases to avoid such information duplication problems. Such planning could produce a totally integrated, enterprise wide, information storage base which can avoid unnecessary duplication of stored data. Clearly, regardless of the degree of planning applied to the initial design of an integrated management information storage base, the need for new management information applications will arise. Such new applications will require significant re-design of the initially integrated information base. This requires significant efforts to re-design the information storage base. The re-design effort frequently requires the resources of a centralized management information technology group coordinating the required changes to maintain the desired information integration. Such centralized integration control based and human re-design intervention is inconsistent with the evolving de-centralization of data processing resources within an enterprise.
From the above discussion it can be seen that there exists a need for improved topological information management systems which automate the maintenance of topological associations between objects. Such improved systems would assist in reducing duplication of information stored within the topological management system in such a way that new management information applications could be more easily integrated with existing applications than is possible under known prior approaches.